"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Never, Never, Never Quit.

FIGHT....................FINISH

Countdown to B2B

I CAN

Monday, April 23, 2007

And so it begins...................




I have decided to create my first blog to allow friends and family to follow my quest to complete my first Ironman race!!! I use the term race liberally, for me it will be a day of survival.

It's kind of funny I'm even starting this now since I still don't know which race I'll do. I want to do one in the fall of 2008 to celebrate my 40th birthday(October 7th) but a couple things will dictate which race I select. Currently there are 2 strong contenders and 1 dark horse. The 2 contenders are Ironman Florida in November and Ironman Louisville in August. The dark horse is the Great Floridian in October. A couple things will dictate which race I do. Louisville will require a I do the brunt of my training during the hot months of summer. Of course this would also be a benefit since the kids won't be in school and I wouldn't have to worry about taking/picking them up. Florida would provide training during the somewhat cooler months at the end but still a lot of the training would occur during the summer.Great Floridian would come into play if I can't get into either of the other two(they fill up within a day of registration opening a year in advance). At this point I'm leaning on doing Florida.

So, what do I do between now and then? The short answer is a lot of swimming, biking and running. A little background. I have been running since 1991 and have completed 14 marathons(26.2 miles) and dozens of shorter running races. I have also done several sprint and Olympic distance triathlons and 3 1/2 Ironman races(1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) since starting to train for triathlons in 2001. I have several races planned between now and my Ironman, including a 1/2 Ironman at Steelhead in St. Joe Michigan on August 4th. I will also be doing several shorter races this summer and will be updating my blog as those come up. Also, I will update this blog with my training as the weeks go by.

Please feel free to comment!!